After a three-and-a-half year hiatus from issuing any new music, Travis has finally reconvened for purposes of recording a new album. The first fruits from those sessions, “Gaslight,” has just been released, serving as a teaser for the impending new LP, L.A. Times, scheduled for release on July 12.
“L.A. Times is our most personal album since The Man Who,” Healy said in the press release announcing the album. “There was a lot of big stuff to write about back then, the tectonic plates had shifted in my life. I was 22 when I was writing those songs. They were my therapy. Over 20 years later and the plates have shifted again. There’s a lot to talk about.”
Travis performing at The Roundhouse, Camden, London on May 20, 2022
The title of the new album is more than just the name of a notable California newspaper, it's also making reference to the city where Travis lead singer Fran Healey has been living for the past decade, and - as he discussed in a recent interview with NME - it's also where he's had to deal with far too much gaslighting, the topic which inspired the aforementioned new single.
“I’ve had personal experience of it, my kids have had personal experience, friends have had it, you get it in schools, you get it in the police, you get it with politicians,” he told NME. “Are we living in a time where it’s happening more? No I don’t think so. We’re like, ‘Oh my God it’s everywhere’ but it’s always been everywhere. It’s not nice to be on the receiving end of it but it’s nice to be emancipated from it. To rid yourself of it. Someone said something to me once and it really struck a chord. That is, ‘Look, if there’s someone in your life who you’re maybe on the phone with and every time you see them or put the phone down, you don’t feel good about yourself, why the f--- are they in your life?’ Get them out of your f--king life. So it’s a song about getting people like that and saying, ‘Get to f---.'”
In the NME conversation, Healy also detailed the title track of the new album and how it was inspired by having his studio situated in Skid Row.
“My studio and where it’s based is where Skid Row is at its most intense,” said Healy. “You’ve got literally people with nothing living here and driving through this was this canary yellow Lamborghini, just cruising through with this guy’s arm hanging out the window. He was some dude wearing mirrored glasses. About six months later [guitarist] Andy [Dunlop] sent me this piece of music we’d all played on and I was trying to fiddle a song into it. This part came out about seeing all this pain and suffering because that guy had really quite a lot of jewellery on his hand. Over there, people show off their wealth and I had this image of all this being reflected off the 50 facets of this guy’s big diamond ring. That’s where the song ‘L.A. Times’ comes from.”
Although Travis have yet to announce a tour of their own to support L.A. Times, they'll be serving as support for The Killers on the band's upcoming UK tour:
JUNE
12 – Dublin, 3Arena
14 – Dublin, 3Arena
15 – Dublin, 3Arena
18 – Manchester, Co-Op Live
19 – Manchester, Co-Op Live
21 – Manchester, Co-Op Live
22 – Manchester, Co-Op Live
25 – Glasgow, Ovo Hydro
26 – Glasgow, Ovo Hydro
27 – Glasgow, Ovo Hydro
JULY
4 – London, The O2
5 – London, The O2
7 – London, The O2
8 – London, The O2
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